Kingston reward program aims to get guns off streets (video)

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- City police plan to launch a reward program aimed at getting guns used in crimes off the streets.

Police Chief Egidio Tinti said the program, which comes amid an intensifying national debate about firearms, will provide cash -- perhaps as much as $1,000 -- or gift cards to people who tip off cops to the whereabouts of a gun used in a crime or bring one to police headquarters.

Mayor Shayne Gallo hopes the initiative will quicken the eradication of illegal guns.

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"Hopefully, this will lessen the amount of unregistered guns in our community," the mayor said.

Common Council Majority Leader Thomas Hoffay said he backs the program.

"I am fully supportive of it, and I think any program that the police department has that takes guns off the streets is a very good program," said Hoffay, D-Ward 2.

Tinti said the program will not replace the single-day gun buyback events that have been held twice a year in Midtown. Rather, he said, the new program is an incentive for anyone who has a gun used in a crime, or who knows where one is, to act immediately.

"We just don't want people waiting for six months to turn in a gun," Tinti said. "... We think we can recover more illegal weapons off the streets" under the reward program.

At the same time, the city's gun buyback program probably will be expanded from two times per year to three or four, Tinti said. That program offers gift cards to people who turn in any type of gun, not just illegal ones.